This paper aims to analyse heteronormativity and queer characters in the game World ofWarcraft and its accompanying literary works Exploring Azeroth: The Eastern Kingdoms,Shadows Rising, and ”Terror by Torchlight” by comparing how they differ between the gameand the books. To accomplish this, the paper focuses on the characters Flynn Fairwind andMathias Shaw and their budding relationship. Through the analysis, I establish the world ofWorld of Warcraft as heteronormative, and continue by discussing what roles queer charactersplay and how they differ from heteronormative characters. The paper concludes that queercharacters play smaller roles focused on tension-relieving comedic moments that tend to getwritten out of the story as their storylines conclude. It also finds that the relationship betweenFlynn and Mathias is treated as a character in its own right and that the two characters gettheir own voices amplified through the relationship. / <p>Alternativt författarnamn: Alex Linhem</p>

Through a series of in-depth qualitative interviews and a discourse analysis of academic publications this study explores the definition of indie video games, relationships between queer players and indie video games that they play, and ways in which queer players relate to games in general. The comparison of definitions between academic publications and player interviews shows that “indie” is a vague term that is too broad to define, either relying upon modes of production or becoming impossibly narrow in attempts to describe indie game trends. Instead, a more productive point of discussion seems to be located around affect typical for genres and categories of games, with modes of production being an important but not defining part of the conversation. / Media Studies & Production

We are living in an age of widening inequality and fragmented social solidarity and trust. Simultaneously, our social connections and relationships are increasingly disperse. In this context, how do people understand and respond to their experiences of marginality and alienation? This dissertation uses the case of transnational intimate relationships in Peru to understand how these relationships and the context in which they occur become sites for individuals to resist experiences of subordination and disaffection, and reimagine future possibilities for themselves. Máncora, Peru is a small coastal town that has experienced rapid growth as a tourist destination, but that contends with high levels of socio-political and economic informality and precarity. Against this backdrop, I examine the relationships that have emerged between a group of local men and tourist women mainly from North America and Europe. Previous scholarship has understood these relationships as “female sex tourism” or “romance tourism,” however this dissertation moves beyond these sometimes one-dimensional accounts. Ultimately, beyond arguing that these relationships are not merely transactional, I argue that these relationships, and the context in which they occurred, provided the men and women I met in Máncora with something curative: a remedy for the marginality and alienation that they experienced in their everyday lives. Specifically, I examine how their relational pursuits of pleasure, escapism, and desire gave rise to fantasy. This fantasy fueled and was fueled by their relationships, and allowed the men and women to contest and cope with a sense of alienation and marginality engendered by neoliberalism, and make meaning under conditions of structural constraint. Using qualitative methods, including participant observation, interviews, photography, and social media content analysis, I explore three key themes. Part one describes a masculine subculture that emerged on the beach where the men worked and met their partners. This subculture was premised on pleasure and leisure, and shaped how they cultivated relationships with their partners, managed everyday experiences of subordination, and planned for the future. Part two examines the economic and gendered dynamics that underpinned the women’s desire for travel and escape. These dynamics also shaped why they sought out relationships with unlikely partners, and how they envisioned that they could transform their everyday lives to be more fulfilling. Finally, part three explores the role of fantasy in how the men and women imagined alternative possibilities for themselves within their relationships, and in the touristic context of the town. This dissertation also makes three key contributions. First, within sociology, Weber’s thesis of the “disenchantment of the world” is well known. It describes the sense of a loss of purpose, meaning, and transcendence in people’s lives as a consequence of modernity and the rationalization of social life. Less explored, however, is Weber’s recognition of the possibility of re-enchantment that can paradoxically emerge in response to these forces as people seek to recover meaning. This dissertation locates this process of re-enchantment in the ways that people engage with fantasy. Second, this dissertation advances a sociology of fantasy. I define fantasy as material, economic, and erotic imaginaries that allow people to project and construct alternative lives. I argue that fantasy can be understood as operating beyond the realm of individual-level behavior, and be recognized as a social condition or relational phenomenon. I also argue that while sometimes improbable and limiting, fantasies can also be a productive means through which people cope with and contest experiences of marginality and alienation. Finally, this dissertation makes a theoretical intervention by bridging conceptions of the future from sociology and queer theory. Queer theorists argue for utopian orientations to the world that permit for potentiality where there is none, and a being and doing for the future to move through the present. Sociologists have written about “imagined futures” to describe how people use seemingly irrational ideas about the future to make identity claims, assert moral worthiness, and transcend present realities. I argue that queer theory provides us with models for thinking about the reasons for, and means through which, marginalized people find spaces to exist, thrive, assert identity, and find community. A queer lens is useful because it demonstrates how and why marginality can lead to responses centered around pleasure, utopic imaginaries, and the projection of alternative futures.

Ce mémoire porte sur la représentation littéraire de la honte entrevue comme un affect productif et étroitement lié à l’identité queer. Cette interprétation de la honte s’appuie sur la recherche d’Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick qui suggère que l’affect inaugure un pouvoir inextinguible de transformation. Il devient ainsi possible d’appréhender l’articulation entre la honte et l’identité, l’intime et le social, la répression et l’expression dans le roman Autobiography of Red (1998) d’Anne Carson et les recueils de poésie The Dream of a Common Language (1978) et A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981) d’Adrienne Rich. Dans le roman, le protagoniste Geryon, un monstre queer inspiré d’un mythe grec ancien, tente de saisir la signification de son existence dans le monde. Au fil du récit, il construit son « autobiographie » pour mieux façonner son identité. Son apparence monstrueuse empreinte d’affects et une relation amoureuse queer se trouvent au cœur de sa production artistique. En ce qui a trait aux recueils de poésie, Rich projette de créer un langage commun pour enfin représenter les femmes (lesbiennes). Elle promet de leur bâtir un espace affectif en réécrivant l’histoire lesbienne par le biais de sa poésie. Celle-ci permet d’éclaircir le lien entre la honte et l’identité ainsi que d’énoncer les possibilités politiques que cette relation provoque. Ce mémoire développe donc deux manifestations distinctes de la honte chez le sujet queer. D’un côté, il étudie son expérience hautement intime et personnelle, enchevêtrée dans le processus de la constitution de soi. De l’autre, il analyse la façon dont le traitement de la honte par Rich conduit à la création, autant artistique que politique. / This master’s thesis engages with the literary representation of shame as a productive affect that is closely tied to queer identity. This interpretation of shame draws on the research of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who argues that this affect inaugurates the place of identity and “a near-inexhaustible source of transformational energy.” In doing so, it enables a comprehension of the nexus between shame and identity, the intimate and the social, repression and expression in Anne Carson’s novel Autobiography of Red (1998) and Adrienne Rich’s poetry collections The Dream of a Common Language (1978) and A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far (1981). In the novel, the protagonist Geryon, a queer monster derived from an ancient Greek myth, attempts to grasp the meaning of his existence in the world. As the story unfolds, he constructs his “autobiography” to better construct his identity. His monstrous appearance, marked by affect, and a queer love story are at the heart of his artistic production. Concerning the poetry collections, Rich launches the project of creating a common language to at last represent (lesbian) women. She vows to shape an affective space for them by rewriting history through her poetry. It allows us to clarify the connection between shame and lesbian identity, and articulate the political possibilities that this relationship provokes. This master’s thesis therefore develops two distinct manifestations of shame within the queer subject. On the one hand, it examines the highly intimate and personal experience of shame as it is entangled in the process of self-constitution. On the other, it analyzes the ways in which Rich’s treatment of shame leads to sociability and to creation, both artistic and political.

In this thesis I analyzed three different literary works; A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers (2020), Bunny by Mona Awad (2019), and Dirty Weekend by Helen Zahavi (1991) through the perspective of the female killer. The aim of the thesis was to analyze the so called “female rage” and what led the women in these novels to murder men. I also discussed how the female killers were presented and if and how the women were perceived as monstrous. The method I chose to do this was close reading, and the theory I used was queer theory. I mostly used Jack Halberstam’s book Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters to contextualize my arguments as well as Judith Butler’s Genustrubbel and Sam Holmqvist’s chapter in Litteraturvetenskap II. The analysis showed that there is a connection between the monster and queerness, and that each of the women I wrote about has both monstrous and queer aspects. The analysis also showed the importance of power and how most of the motivation behind the women killing the men was their lack of power in a patriarchal society.

This essay analyzes how the films Less Than Zero and The Doom Generation intersect with their overlapping themes regarding sex, sexuality, and death. The intended goal of the readings in this essay is to examine how queerness was represented in film during the AIDS crisis, specifically through the feature of a sexually fluid trio of friends. It first identifies the common elements of both films, including the gender makeup of the friend group, ambiguous or unrealized queerness, the role of the car in sexual desire, and themes of death and demise. The essay then considers the context of the AIDS crisis and 80s conservatism, Lacanian ethics, and queer theory to dissect how these elements and themes are explored in opposing ways. My central argument then is that Less Than Zero uses these narrative elements in problematic ways to condemn its queer character and, subsequently, queer audiences, while The Doom Generation uses these elements to offer a more respectful and sympathetic view of its queer characters and audiences. This essay stands as another example of queer analysis conducted by a queer researcher to place both Less Than Zero and The Doom Generation in a unique conversation with one another as similar, though ultimately opposing films.

This dissertation offers an intimate view into the emotional life of a queer teacher while she lived and taught middle school in a conservative rural Northern Californian community during the years 2020 to 2022. Acknowledging the emotional weight felt by many educators as they confront challenges in and outside of their academic curricula, this study offers a framework for recording, examining, and analyzing the wobble moments (emotionally difficult events) experienced by teachers in ways that may relieve some of their associated tension and stress. Through reflections on teacher journal entries, this autoethnographic study demonstrates how emotion, dialogic, and queer theories may be used to rethink and reconfigure the narratives of our emotional experiences. The author argues that by engaging in emotional dialogue, teachers may gain new insight on and deepen their relationships to their practice and profession, as well as to their students and colleagues. Ultimately, it is in her analysis of these relationships that the author finds solace and lightens some the emotional weight of teaching.

It is certainly important for the Swedish school to prepare students for the adult world. It iscertainty a priority according to our curriculum, once students graduate, they should behaving democratic principles which includes an understanding and respecting all humankind, regardless of ethnicity, religion, and sexuality. For this to be achieved, the Swedish teachingin schools must incorporate teaching contents which allows students to understand socialstructures and norms that underlies in society that causes inequality. Such contents should bemore about racism, sexism and for this research primarily focus, homophobia. Often within subjects, LGBT+ has been invisible in Swedish teaching which causes students to be rather ignorant to their surroundings. Therefore, it is crucial and necessary to teach especially in the subject history for upper secondary schools. Hence, the fact that history contributes to shaping students’ identity. Thus, this research investigates how history teachers includes the LGBTQ+ in their history teaching. It is also in this study’s interest to analyze how heteronormativity underlies in teachers teaching ability in relation to history teaching. To research this matter, the method for this study is a qualitive method which has collected data in form of interviews from seven different teachers and different schools. The chosen theory was queer theory as the study primarily focuses on how sexuality is conceptualized and understood by teachers aswell as their reflection on heteronormativity. The result of the findings was that none of the teachers had taught about LGBTQ+ in history but simultaneously showed a great amount of interest in doing so near the future. However, the teachers expressed some uncertainty in how LGBTQ+ could be taught in a more practical sense. According to the teachers, this uncertainty that was an obstacle they needed to overcome, had many factors. Among the factors were that the teachers were uneducated in the history of LGBTQ+, time seemed to be against them and there are no proper teaching materials which the teachers can confine in. This gap has also caused teachers to be unprepared for conflicts in the classroom related toLGBTIQ+-questions. This finding shows that both the academic world along with the teaching programs must educate teacher students about such important matters for them to be prepared once their careers begin.

The relationship between monstrosity and homosexuality is complex, interwoven, and essential to 21st century understandings of horror and pop culture. Yet, not enough work has been done to disentangle these narratives. While the LGBT community has recently made tremendous strides in national acceptance and legalized marriage, queer individuals still feel like the monsters of both media and real life. This thesis seeks to explore the relationship between monstrosity and queerness, developing both a lens for understanding monstrosity, and understanding pop culture monsters through that lens. This thesis seeks to dismember these cultural narratives––much as these narratives have dismembered queer communities. By dismantling and reconstructing monstrosity through verse, this thesis hopes to shed light towards the struggles queer men (and non-fictional monsters) face.

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